ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of a lady, whose father, killed her mother, leading to his detention in a psychiatric facility. His clinicians tested him for Huntington's disease, which proved positive. He had capacity, and agreed to the testing only on the basis that his results were not shared with his family. In the meantime, the lady fell pregnant. Her father's doctors knew about the pregnancy and wanted to disclose his diagnosis to his daughter; from the time of his diagnosis there would have been a window of 2 months during which termination of her pregnancy was feasible. The claimant told the court that the clinicians had a ‘duty to balance the Claimant's interest in being informed of her risk of a genetic disorder against her father's interest in having the confidentiality of that diagnosis preserved’. The judge reflected that this duty would rarely act as foundation for litigation.
